The World's Biggest Loser

Isa 53:4-6,12 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 12 ...he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Nobody likes to fail. Anybody who has played sports, though, has had to lose. But nobody enjoys it. Nobody enjoys the embarrassment of losing. If you lose big, sometimes it means humiliation. Nobody wants to be a loser; nobody wants to be called a failure.

I've lived long enough that I can remember when the Minnesota Vikings made it to the Super Bowl. Actually, I remember them playing in four Super Bowls—and at least two other years when they choked and threw away the NFL championship game that would have put them into two more Super Bowls. Somehow they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I played football when I was in high school. I was 70 pounds lighter than I am now, so I didn't have much muscle to contribute to the team, but my senior year I was playing in the last game of the season against Ogilvie. We were down by less than a touchdown, which was a big deal because up till then we hadn't won a single game all season. What's more, we were on about the Ogilvie 3-yard-line, fourth down with only seconds left in the game. The coach sent in the play: a quick release pass to the left end—to me! I couldn't believe it! Most of the time I sat on the bench, and with so much riding on the play, I couldn't believe the coach had called my number. But as I came up to the line, I was determined. I would catch that pass. I would score six points. I would win the game on the last play of my football career. And I would save our team from a winless, humiliating season. Unfortunately, there was a big guy standing in front of me. And he wouldn't let me get around him. The ball fell to the ground. No touchdown. No glory. No fame. No girls. No product endorsements. Just bitter, agonizing defeat. And so, during my senior year the Mora Mustangs went 0 and 8 for the season. Zero wins; eight losses.

I go watch the church basketball team—which normally wins their games—but when I'm there, they lose. After the game we go out to one of the player's homes, and while I'm their one of the kids—a 7-year-old—plays me in a game of Nintendo Wii Tennis. He beats me. I lose to a 7-year-old.

Obviously, I'm in need of therapy.

Nobody likes to fail. We try to avoid failure. The American Dream is about winning. About succeeding against all odds. About working and scratching and clawing our way to the top of the heap.

We love a winner. We put the winner up on a pedestal. We all want to be like the winners. We have a drive to succeed. Our ambition is to come out on top.

We might pity losers—but mostly we just ignore them. We let them go hide in the locker room where they can lick their wounds alone. Maybe the losing coach is interviewed in hushed tones in the hallway, but that's about it. Generally, we try to avoid losers. It's as though we're afraid the loser has a contagious disease—one we don't want to rub off on us.

I was thinking about winners and losers this week as I remembered the story of Jesus and his death on a cross. His death was manipulated by powerful people in high places—scheming religious leaders and brutal Roman soldiers. But the thing that struck me was that Jesus didn't have to lose. He chose to lose—he took our place and willingly gave up his life so we could take his place and receive life!

By many of the world's standards, Jesus was a loser. It wasn't just that he got himself killed, it's that even his teachings stand in stark contrast to the "win-at-any-cost" mentality. Jesus said:

• Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt 10:39);
• If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last (Mark 9:35);
• Take the lowest place (Luke 14:10);
• Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (Luke 14:11);
• Whoever wants to be first must be your slave (Matt 20:27);
• If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily (Luke 9:23);
• Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (Matt 20:26).

Looking at his words and actions and the end of his life, Jesus seemed to be a loser. And in fact, many people and cultures throughout history have viewed Jesus as a failure. They cannot imagine why we would honor someone like that, someone who glorified losing and got himself killed.

From a worldly point of view it doesn't make sense. Why would you honor someone...

• Who was ridiculed and scorned by those with influence and power;
• Whose popularity suddenly went down the tubes—from a cheering throng to a jeering mob;
• Who was tried, sentenced, and condemned as a common criminal;
• Who was abandoned by his closest friends and supporters;
• And who in the end was beaten, humiliated, and executed?

Think about it. By ordinary standards, does it make any sense that we would follow a leader who had failed on so many levels? It's no wonder Muslims and people from other cultures and world views have difficulty understanding us. Why would a nation like ours—the richest, most advanced, most successful nation in the history of the world—why would we choose to follow a loser?

That may seem like a jarring statement, but you have to put yourself in their shoes to try to understand why they would think that way. Their viewpoint, of course, is based on misunderstanding and incomplete information. But it is the way many of them think.

In the early days of the church, in the years just after Jesus was crucified, there were a lot of misunderstandings about Jesus.

The Jews believed he was a rebel to the status quo, a criminal, one who threatened their favored status with their Roman overseers. The Jews thought he wanted to undermine their national values—especially the Law of Moses and all their religious traditions. In their mind, he violated the Sabbath and rules about cleanliness and he hung out with all sorts of undesirable people.

Why he even permitted a sinful woman to touch him, to cry tears all over his feet! Another time he willingly reached out his hand and touched a leper—an unclean leper! And he was always going to parties with sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors! Always hanging out with a bunch of losers!

And then, to make matters worse, the Jews believed his followers had perpetrated a great hoax by stealing his body from the tomb and then claiming that he had been miraculously raised back to life from the dead.

(They believed this despite the fact that his disciples were in no condition at all to pull off any kind of a hoax, even the smallest deception. Why not? Because his disciples were scared to death, hiding out in fear of the authorities—as you and I would have been, if we'd been there. The disciples were devastated by the crucifixion. It changed everything for them. They thought Jesus was the coming, conquering Messiah—the Anointed One chosen to liberate their nation from Rome. His death crushed all their dreams. The cross was the ultimate defeat for them. So with their hopes gone, the disciples were in hiding, trying to figure out what the next step in their shattered lives should be.)

It wasn't just the Jews, however, who had misconceptions about Jesus. The Romans and Greeks believed he was one of those weird religious nut cases who had some kind of suicidal, messianic complex. They considered him to be nothing more than one of dozens of insurgents who were nuisances—troubling but minor aggravations throughout the Empire.

After Jesus' death on the cross, when the movement began to spread throughout the Empire, the Romans expanded their views. They began to call his followers "little-Christs" (that is what the label "Christian" meant—that his followers were like little Messiahs, wanting to imitate Jesus). They thought his followers were as crazy as he was.

So they ridiculed Christians: they called them atheists (because they didn't have gods you could see—like their gods); they accused them of being cannibals (because they'd eat the flesh and drink the blood of their leaders); they said they were sexual perverts (because they'd gather together for "love feasts" where they would love each other); and they made fun of them with derogatory images—like Jesus wearing a donkey's head [The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, by John Michael Greer, p 248].

In their mind, these Christians were asking for it. Why else would normally intelligent people throw all their ambitions to the wind in order to follow some unknown loser who got himself killed for his crazy ideas? Why, the Christians even seemed proud of the fact their leader was executed. They took the cross as their central theme! The cross! How stupid could they be? Who would use a cross—an instrument of torture and death, as a logo—as a marketing strategy?

From the perspective of the world, Christians chose to follow a loser. From their point of view, it didn't make sense to go with a failure. In fact, the Bible tells us...

1 Cor 1:18 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing...

(Remember, though, this was all part of God's plan. God sent his Son into the world to save the world, to bring hope to the world, to defeat the devil and sin—but to do all this in ways diametrically opposed to conventional thinking. Jesus came to conquer hearts, not kingdoms. He came to serve, not be served. He came to turn the philosophies of the world and the ways of the world upside down.)

1 Cor 1:18-25 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

So what do we say to the Romans and the Greeks? How do we explain ourselves to the Jews? Can a secular humanist ever get it? Can the Donald Trumps and the Bernie Madoffs and the G20 leaders of the world ever understand? Can they ever see that we don't follow Jesus because we enjoy failing or losing? Can they ever grasp that there is something much deeper, much more profound going on here?

What the world needs to see about the cross is that it was the first step on the way to the Resurrection. With only a cross, our faith would be futile...frustrated...a failure. But because of the Resurrection of Jesus, losers are transformed into winners!

Because of the Resurrection our sins and our sorrows were carried away. Because of the Resurrection our iniquities were forgiven and our wounds were healed.

The Resurrection transformed...

• Defeat into victory;
• Failure into success;
• Death into life;

It's because of the Resurrection that we celebrate more than a cross. It's because of the Resurrection that we can celebrate an empty tomb! The Resurrection makes all the difference! Without the Resurrection, of course, with the cross only, it would be foolish to follow Jesus. The Bible tells us...

1 Cor 15:14-19 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.... 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

The cross itself has no special power to save. The cross itself is not a spiritual instrument. It was Rome's harshest punishment. It was simply a vicious tool used for torture and death.

In fact, there were thousands and thousands of unfortunate victims of crucifixions. Sometimes the road was lined for miles with crosses holding people dying a slow, agonizing death. Many of them were Christians who suffered and died because they believed they had eternal life through Jesus.

But none of those thousands of deaths on thousands of crosses could do what Jesus' death did. What makes the cross of Jesus unique and special was:

1.                  Who Jesus was and

2.                 What happened after he died.

Jesus' death was not a failure! It was not a defeat. It was not the last event in the life of a pathetic loser. Why? Because the cross of Jesus resulted in the Resurrection.

And that changed everything! The Resurrection—which has strong historical verification—proved that Jesus was who he said he was—the Son of God.

Romans 1:4 (NIV) [Christ Jesus] ...through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Because he was the Son of God, because he was raised back to life, his death became the means by which God deals with all the world's sins and failures. He made a divine exchange that day. He nailed the record of all our sins on the cross—and in exchange gave us new life.

Col 2:13-14 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

Jesus was crucified, but he was not a failure. He was put to death by those in power, but he was not a loser. We celebrate the Resurrection to remind ourselves that Jesus chose to take our place. He took our punishment, our sin, our death upon himself. In exchange, he offers us grace, forgiveness, and life.

2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NCV: Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God; MSG: God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.)

His loss became our gain; his suffering brought our healing; his death gives us life; his condemnation became our pardon; he became a loser so we could become winners. That's why today...

Jesus offers you hope if you're going through pain, disappointment, set-backs, injustice;

Jesus offers you hope if you've felt like a loser or a failure in life;

Jesus offers you hope if you've been held captive by sin or trapped by powerful addictions;

Jesus offers you hope if you cannot forgive someone for what he or she did to hurt you;

Jesus offers you hope if you're tired of life—tired of a boring, meaningless existence;

Jesus offers you hope if you desire something more than this world has to offer;

Jesus offers you hope because he took your place so that you could take his place.

A few years ago, I read a remarkable article in National Geographic about the Dalits of India—the caste of "Untouchables," those at the bottom rung of the social ladder, the rejects and outcasts of society. They live miserable lives, assigned with all the filthy, dirty, repugnant jobs that no one else wants to do. [June, 2003]

One of the stories in that article was about Amrutbhai Sarasiya, a member of the "scavenger" caste—the lowest of the Untouchables. His job was to manually clean out latrines and clogged sewer pipes. He would lower himself down into the sewer system beneath the streets, slosh around bare-footed in the filth and the muck. He was, quite literally, a human roto-rooter. He wore no rubber suit, no boots, no gloves. Anyone else would want extreme protective gear to deal with the toxic bio-waste. But Amrutbhai is an untouchable. He doesn't matter. So he goes down, gets covered with waste, battles the noxious gas and stench invading his nostrils, cleans out the problem blocking the system, and then climbs out.

National Geographic showed a picture of Amrutbhai coming out of the sewer. His job was done, and he wanted some water so he could get cleaned up. But he was an untouchable. Even worse, he was a filthy and smelly, a repugnant untouchable. No one wanted anything to do with him. No one would let him near the neighborhood wells to get the water that could clean him off.

Who could blame them? He was covered with filth and human waste. Sewage was matted in his hair, caked on his skin, crusted under his fingernails. It didn't matter to them that it was their problem he had fixed. It didn't matter that it was their own sewage and waste that covered him. He looked and smelled awful. He was a loser—and so he was rejected and scorned by everyone.

Like Amrutbhai, Jesus became an "untouchable." He lowered himself down into the sewer of our sin. Though he was holy and righteous and blameless, he was willing to touch the unclean—those whom others avoided, the untouchables of his day: lepers, sinners, disreputable women, tax collectors.

Like Amrutbhai in the sewer, Jesus sloshed around in the filth and the muck of this world. But unlike Amrutbhai, who was born an untouchable and had no choice in the matter, Jesus chose to lower himself. He deliberately chose to become sin—filthy and disgusting and repugnant to his Father; rejected and scorned by the world as a loser and a failure.

Jesus loved us enough to come down to clean up our mess. That's why he felt the sting of rejection. When he cried out, "My God! Why have you forsaken me?" he exchanged places with us. We were the ones whose sins and guilt and shame kept us from God. We were the ones who deserved to be forsaken and rejected. We were the ones who should have been cast out.

Instead, because of Jesus, you and I are accepted and welcomed in. Because of Jesus, we can be made pure and clean and righteous. And because Jesus took our place, we can receive God's forgiveness and love.

(Isa 53:4-6,12, Message) But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him. ...he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Like the song says: I'm forgiven because you were forsaken. I'm accepted; you were condemned. I'm alive and well; your Spirit lives within, because you died and rose again. Amazing love, how can it be that you my King would die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true. And it's my joy to honor you in all I do.